


Won't Get Fooled Again

by Haberdasher



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archivist Jonathan Sims, Canonical Character Death, Cliffhangers, During Canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memory Alteration, Memory Magic, POV Jonathan Sims, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period, once again i don't know if this would work in canon but too bad, safehouse fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: Jon has an unexpected visitor at the safehouse.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 58





	Won't Get Fooled Again

There was a knock on the safehouse door.

Jon’s first thought was that it must be Martin at the door, but no, that didn’t make sense, it’d been barely five minutes since he’d left on his walk, he wouldn’t be coming back (coming home) so soon...

The door to the safehouse had a peephole, thankfully, so even without having to use his Eye powers Jon could look through and see who was outside without having to open the door and expose himself to any potential threats in the process.

What Jon saw through the peephole was enough to make him shiver.

Tim was outside.

But... but Tim was _dead_. They’d found his body after the Unknowing, and even if they hadn’t, he’d been in the epicenter of the explosion, been in the middle of a building that collapsed on top of him...

Alright, so Jon had been there too, but that was different. He _knew_ why he had survived, why death hadn’t claimed him then and there, though it’d taken him six long months to escape entirely from the End’s grasp. Unless Jon was very much mistaken, Tim didn’t have (hadn’t had) the same going for him.

And yet... Jon hadn’t seen (or Seen) it happen, and maybe some part of him had been hoping for this, hoping that a mistake had been made somewhere along the way, hoping that he hadn’t actually lost yet another of his closest companions that easily.

Jon cracked the door open. There was less than a finger’s width of distance between it and the door frame still, but that was enough to let sound in, and to let the cool autumn air in as well.

For one long moment, all was still.

“Jon?”

Tim’s voice was a mix of emotions, anxiety and anger and uncertainty and the softest hint of hope all mixed into one.

And it was definitely Tim’s voice, the same one that had berated him about confusing the names Carla and Clara on the tapes an eternity ago, the same one that had called out to him shortly before pressing the detonator.

“Tim.”

Jon still didn’t quite believe it, logic and instinct fighting in his mind; he wrapped one hand around the door tightly, but he didn’t open it any further.

“Care to let me into your freaky little cabin in the middle of nowhere, or are you just going to stand there and watch me shiver?”

“I...” Jon’s voice trailed off as he realized he had no idea how he was going to continue that sentence. Instead, he opted for another tack entirely, one that saw the line between straightforward and blunt and played hopscotch on it.

“Tim, you’re _dead_.”

Tim gestured towards his body, which was still covered in worm scars and a handful of others to boot but was very much intact. “Really? Guess I didn’t get the memo.”

“They... they told me you were dead. Said they’d found your body a few days after...”

Jon didn’t finish the sentence, partly because he didn’t want to, partly because he didn’t _need_ to, and partly because Tim’s eyebrows kept rising and his grin kept widening with every word Jon said and if the pace didn’t slow and the words kept coming Tim’s face would smack right into uncanny valley territory.

“Oh, is _that_ what they told you? I’ve been wondering--figured there had to be some kind of cover story, or else you’d have gone off on some slapdash mission looking for me, probably gotten yourself kidnapped again too...”

God, Jon had missed Tim.

“Then...” Jon tapped his fingers against the door, opened it a hair wider. “Then what _really_ happened?”

“Oh, I seduced Elias-”

Jon’s face must have been quite the sight, because Tim rushed to finish his sentence, raising his hands in a gesture of- peace? Supplication?

“-so he’d let me quit, and so I could run off with a ton of the Institute’s cash while I was at it. I think I’m technically on the run from the law now? Anyone asks, my name’s Rodolfo.”

Tim punctuated that last line with a wink and finger guns, and for a brief, beautiful moment it was almost as if none of it had happened, as if they had just started in the archives and the biggest thing he had to worry about was whether he’d made a few mistakes when reading through the statements...

“Be glad to tell you the full story over whatever liquor you’ve got in there?”

Jon wanted to throw open the door and let Tim in and give him as much liquor as he would take, he really did. That sounded like the start of a wonderful evening.

But Jon also was starting to suspect that any time life treated him well, gave him something that seemed too good to be true, it always lead to disappointment and mayhem and everything he cared about unraveling in front of him.

(Except the safehouse, so far. Jon was trying very, very hard not to look that particular gift horse in the mouth.)

And while he’d asked Tim a few questions, Jon had been careful to keep any compulsion out of his voice when he did so, because Tim had made his feelings about Jon’s--how had he phrased it before? “Spooky monster powers”?--well, about Jon’s newfound abilities very clear.

Jon wanted to respect that, but more than that, he needed to be sure.

“Who are you, really?” He kept the compulsion on the light side, at least to start with. No need to overdo it, especially since after the incident with Peter Lukas in the Lonely, he knew the consequences of using his Eye powers to their full potential all too well.

The answer came quick enough. “Someone who hates when you do that.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Not really that specific, there.”

“Do you really have to pull that shit with me?”

“If you know what I’ve been through, you’d know the answer is _yes_. Now. Are you actually Tim Stoker?” Heavier, this time.

“As much as anyone is, these days.” Tim paused for a moment before adding in a lighter tone, “Besides everyone else who happens to have the same name, but we all know who’d top the list if you ranked all the Tim Stokers in the world, right?”

Jon didn’t respond to Tim’s question, which seemed to be largely rhetorical anyhow, as he was too busy parsing Tim’s initial response. Two awfully roundabout answers in a row there... was Tim just being obtuse (probably on purpose, knowing him), or was something else going on?

Jon was reminded of Helen’s claim that she was as much Helen Richardson as Jon himself still was the Jonathan Sims who’d just been hired by the Magnus Institute... was Tim an avatar now? Of what, then? And could he still be trusted? And if that was all, why didn’t he just admit as much?

Or... or if it wasn’t really Tim, if Tim was as dead as Jon had assumed him to be an hour ago, then anyone, any _thing_ , could be as much Tim as anyone “these days”...

One way to settle this for sure. No holding back.

“ _What is your name_?”

Tim grimaced, resisting the pull of compulsion for several long seconds before he finally spat out, “Whatever it needs to be.”

And then Jon realized, and the being that had pretended to be Tim must have seen it in his eyes, because there was a mad rush for the door, Jon pulling his hand away and shoving all his meager weight against it, Tim’s body contorting into a mess of spindly limbs that pressed against the door.

It was perhaps a minor miracle that Jon managed to win that particular battle of tug-of-war, but just before the door closed for good, he heard a distorted mockery of Tim’s voice--or, or _not_ Tim’s voice, not Tim’s _real_ voice anyway, he would have to get some old tapes from the Institute as soon as he could in order to hear that--call out to him in something akin to a stage whisper.

“You’ll never know what he really looked like.”

Then the door was shut, and Jon stood next to it, sweating and panting from exertion, quick heavy breaths gradually growing slower and calmer over time as he set up every lock he could find for the door before sitting down, back pressed against the door just in case.

The door rattled, and Jon jumped up, looking through the peephole before even considering undoing the locks, half-expecting to see that spindly monstrosity that had posed as Tim waiting for him.

Instead, there was only Martin, Martin back from his walk, Martin who didn’t know why the front door of the safehouse (their house) was locked now when it hadn’t been when he’d left...

...or... _was_ it Martin, waiting outside the door for him, or was it really the creature that was not Sasha and not Tim and not Martin either, hoping to fool Jon a second time?

Jon’s hand lingered over the locks on the door for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
